Are we ready? Emergency plans are public, but some counties take weeks to provide them

Mar. 8, 2013

About this report

This was a spot check of how easily — or difficult — it would be for a citizen to gain access to an important public record. Gannett Wisconsin Media reporters filed open-records requests with county emergency-management officials in late January. The requests, submitted by email, asked for the counties’ “emergency response plan,” which is a common label for a required plan that establishes a blueprint for how local agencies will respond in an emergency such as a leak of toxic chemicals. The media requests were designed to audit whether plans that play a key role in public safety — public documents that were compiled by government employees at taxpayer expense — were accessible by the people they are designed to protect. Gannett undertook the effort in advance of Sunshine Week, a national initiative launched in 2002 to promote the importance of freedom of information. Sunshine Week 2013 runs through March 16. The audit was structured similarly to a national audit conducted in 2007 by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and other groups. Gannett’s initial email encouraged recipients to call or email the reporter if they had questions about the request. Many did. The most common reason was to seek clarification about the document being sought — a number of officials asked if the reporter was seeking an “emergency operations plan,” which is a more basic document, rather than an emergency response plan. A number of counties said they would need a day or two to redact a small amount of personal information in the plans. Typically, that involved personal cell phone numbers of people to be notified in certain emergencies — for example, hospital administrators. Reporters made follow-up attempts in two types of circumstances. If there was no initial response, reporters followed up with telephone calls to be sure that the request had been received. In the counties served by Gannett Wisconsin Media properties, reporters made additional calls to counties that were unable to provide access to the record after several weeks. Telephone interviews were conducted with more than a dozen emergency management officials for this report, and a reporter met in-person with officials in Kewaunee and Oconto counties. The chart accompanying this report shows the number of business days it took for the plan to be made available to the newspaper. In cases where the county could not provide the plan electronically, but said a paper copy was available in its office, the count stopped there. In cases where the county provided a basic plan but not supplemental information commonly called “annexes,” reporters requested the additional information. In one case where a copying fee substantially above $100 was quoted, the reporter did not pursue that request. As of March 1, Gannett had received plans from 55 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. Many plans arrived as multiple file in emails or on CDs; more than 700 files were received. Plans are being posted to Gannett websites over time, with a focus on plans affecting the counties where the largest numbers of our readers live and work.

Want to see your county’s public plans to help keep you and your family safe in an emergency? You may do so with the click of your computer’s mouse — or you might have to wait for weeks.

And you might be able to see the plan at little or no charge — or you might be asked to pay for a copy. In one case, a county wanted more than $600 in photocopying fees.

Each of the state’s 72 counties prepares plans to respond to incidents ranging from chemical leaks, to weather emergencies to acts of terrorism. They provide guidelines for how rescuers, governments and other agencies would handle evacuations or traffic control. They address scenarios similar to the ammonia leak that closed streets in Sheboygan in January, the mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek in 2012 and the gas explosion that killed two people in northern Door County in 2006.

But it’s harder to see the plans in some counties than others, a Gannett Wisconsin Media audit found.

• In northeastern Wisconsin, Outagamie County promptly provided a link to the online version of its plan the day it received the request. Brown County provided its plan the day after the request was made. But Oconto County was unable to provide its report after six weeks.

• In central Wisconsin, Portage County quickly provided a link to an online plan. Neighboring Wood County sent the basic portion of its plan within days, then sent the rest four weeks later. Taylor County provided its plan Feb. 28, saying an earlier attempt to email it failed because the file was too large.

In Marathon County, director of emergency management Steve Hagman initially said he hoped to put his plan online. Contacted on Feb. 28, he said that computer issues had prevented that from happening. He delivered the plan to a reporter on March 1, 25 business days after it was first requested.

• In western Wisconsin, La Crosse County emailed its plan a day after receiving the request. Neighboring Vernon County, which has only one emergency management employee, took almost a month to send its plan.

(Page 2 of 3)

Some officials said they would provide a plan, but haven’t delivered. Oconto County Emergency Management Coordinator Tim Magnin was asked for his plan on Jan. 22, and discussed it with a reporter via e-mail three times before Valentine’s Day.

“I’m about three-fourths of the way done,” he said on March 1, five weeks after a reporter attended a meeting of the county’s Local Emergency Planning Committee at Magnin’s invitation. “Then I have to run it past corporation counsel, but I hope to have it for you (March 4 or 5).”

Costs vary

Gannett reporters requested the plans via emails to county emergency-management officials across Wisconsin in late January.

The goal was to see if plans that would play a key role in public safety — and that were compiled by government employees at taxpayer expense — were accessible by the people they are designed to protect. The plans often contain information of value to the public, such as evacuation routes, information about sirens and other warning systems.

The plans provided by most counties followed a template. The documents, which often encompass hundreds of pages, typically consist of a basic plan plus “annexes” — additions that deal with specific topics, from radiation issues to public relations duties. Lincoln County, though, provided documents that inform firefighters about specific chemicals at facilities where they might be dispatched.

While many counties provided plans at little or no charge, some said they could not provide the document without a fee.

(Page 3 of 3)

• Columbia County, north of Madison, promptly provided its basic plan for $6.64, but estimated it would have to charge 35 cents per page — about $647.50 in all —for “off-site” plans such as those provided by Lincoln County.

• Florence County, located in the Northwoods charged $96 for two hours of Chief Deputy David Gribble’s time “to review and redact information from all documents,” according to an invoice sent by the county.

• Barron County, in northwestern Wisconsin, offered to photocopy its plan for $91.

By contrast, Marinette and Kewaunee counties each provided plans on CD for $10. Kewaunee’s program assistant, Tracy Nollenberg, also provided a tour of the county’s new emergency operations center when a reporter arrived to get the CD and signed the reporter up for email notifications from her office. The county is home to a nuclear power plant that is scheduled to be decommissioned in the near future.

A number of counties provided access immediately, or virtually so, at no charge. Winnebago and Milwaukee counties did so via email; Fond du Lac and Washington counties have versions of their plans on the Internet.

'The dark side'

Of more than a dozen emergency management officials interviewed for this story, most were enthusiastic that someone expressed interest in the plans.

But several voiced concerns that some of the information could cause problems for a community if everyone had access to the plans.

“If you can pick up a written document about how a community would respond to an emergency and you could pick up some specifics, and you’re on the dark side, you could conceivably be a threat to that community,” Calumet County Emergency Management Director Matthew Marmor said.

But he also welcomes local interest in the plan, saying the more local residents who know what’s in it, the better they are likely to respond in a crisis.

Indeed, the public is not legally entitled to know everything. Certain elements related to emergency plans are exempt from disclosure if they qualify as “trade secrets,” even if they involve potentially dangerous chemicals.

And manufacturers and haulers don’t have to provide officials with significant details about what they’re shipping through a county by road or rail.

A federal law enacted in the mid 1980s after the chemical disaster in Bhopal, India, requires that certain local emergency-response planning documents be available to the public, and that agencies publish a notice each year saying where the plans could be viewed.